and journeyed to by call can be unique a trip of a lifetime and the locals say once you've seen it will be coming back again and again. hello again a welcome to spotlight the interview show on part c i'm now going to last and today my guest in the studio is mel smith. for a few days last go has turned into one of the most talked about cities and the theater work students have to first and from the most renowned theaters both gathered here for the status lasky festival there steve rush an actor and here

director of the early twentieth century content to spend his last he is considered to be the father of the modern pageants called what's so special about the training that he created the famous status last piece just to discuss it with melissa smith conservative director and the head of acting at the american concertedly theater in san francisco the only american company invited to the status last in the first. place here first time in its history the prestigious stanislavski theater festival even international students to stage nine of the best drama schools from russia europe and the united states are putting on productions the concept is an open class teachers and students are sharing their views on the acting and future of theatre for many participants this is truly a once in a lifetime experience they did not want to mess to bring all the. some cost you

from the other side of the world students from the american conservatory theatre raised five thousand dollars. who are so welcome to the show thank you thank you very much for coming a lot of it well first of all i'd like to ask you about the bill coming here well i have learned that your students. in the american to surgery theater raised money through the internet this is ok to pay for the trip to pay for those that well they said it was description that they put on the intruder they said for them it's going to be a once in a lifetime experience yet is that true why why it's those lansky first of all so weird for your kids well. for a couple of reasons in the states stance last stylists lasky is the brand name when it comes to actually training and all the different techniques that are being used in various schools the root of all those techniques is stanislaw ski it's also true

that they studied chekhov scene scenes from three sisters cherry orchard there's major plays in the first year of their training we looked at lots of pictures of russia at that time they worked on the scenes for two and a half months and i think at the time no one imagined they would possibly be coming to the motherland so when the opportunity came up it really seemed like a fantasy come true because they had loved working on this play listen to the the a c. t. has brought the house of bernard out of the to this those letters to what was the performance received world here in moscow why do you choose this particular play well because we thought it was one of the best productions we've done in our school and it was done with this group of actors last winter in february and it was so well received in san francisco i think it's a very innovative and inventive production and i thought that it was really a piece of art not just a good student production. and last night it seemed to be very well received they

they were called back for a second and third curtain call. by the audience but i think it combines music and dance as well as the text of the play so it's not told in a completely straightforward realistic way. in europe i was very doing in the beginning of the program the city was actually the only american. american theater school invited to moscow while he who was the choose you well i was told when they first wrote me that they had that you were the best there was an article that i thought you had a lot. of you know i have a colleague who remain in who'd been working a lot in moscow who called me and said i would like to recommend you for this do you think a city would want to go and i said yes i think if we get an invitation we'd love to go but i know that we were when an atoll is smelly and ski wrote he said that he

had heard very good things about us and i do think that our i do think from conversations i've had to take gotten here that what we're doing and our training right now is simpatico as we say with with things that are going on at the moscow art theater i think we were a good school to invite it's interesting that you mention he heard you in here going to you to. watching him and sending some somebody to at least look well if you think my colleague who recommended us who he'd been working with for six or seven years was able to speak in detail about so in fact he had had somebody come and see if that specifically for the first of all somebody who know us well it's like you know you know you know the jews joke going very seeing i hate stravinsky's you know. there are not only for myself. so i guess

somebody was saying the well i don't even want to know so i think that's exactly what i thought it was you could either well. to me about the stolen stuff skew system in america whenever i talk to anybody probably for from new york to hollywood but not you know the status landscape as to why why do you think it is it's so popular in the united states well i think sir there are a couple of things when you say the stanislaw school system it's a pretty broad term he wrote three or four books and the interesting thing is that some teachers draw all of their their teaching from his first book and there are things there is he put forth in his first book that by the third book he's moved far away from him so if you have a teacher who's drawing private early from the later books you have very different pedagogy then in the early books i do think though that i mean a lot of what i teach is an acting teacher comes from stuff lasky. he was very interested in developing the inner life of the actor and then how that inner life

is expressed through behavior and through physical character and. how imagination mixes with memory it's a holistic system so those things that have to do with the inner life if an actor does not have a very well developed inner life he's not going to be very interesting on camera or on you know even the who's really dumb person i mean someone actually you know have to be an intelligence and in our life at the same thing you could be maybe not very smart but have an inner life a feeling like rather than thoughts that can be very interesting i'm camera i'm sure you know something about will slow learner good more about the status landscape and its famous acting method in the report now by spotlights you learn that the media for. these four do show a young man intoxicated by theatre putting on different constitutions take an impressive poses this is. constantin stanislavski in his twenty's the offspring are

one of the richest families in russia he had more interest in acting than in his family business he described acting as the greatest pleasure and the greatest torture and throughout his life try to understand how to achieve authenticity on stage the system eventually turned into a complex method for producing realistic characters. see what i'm offering you this is important i shut you off immediately from the plane of acting . in the plane of your life and your memories you're stronger you have huge material there the system went beyond the boundaries of russian theatre it was taken up by some of the most influential act in teachers in the united states including least tress berg stanislaw skis highest praise was just two words i doing the phrase gave the name to a price for act in the chief months which has been a nearly awarded in moscow meryl streep and jack nicholson are among the recipients

. stanislavski has always been an indispensable part of the russian culture these days to feel the genius comes alive the most cool our theater which stands must be founded is no still the greeting the one hundred in fiftieth anniversary of his birth was an international acting festival stage personalities from around the globe gathered in moscow to perform in tribute up someone who truly revolutionized acting. how did the sternness loose stones slow skew system actually conquer america because when i ask people do they do start talking about it because it is that right yes michael chekhov's work is important too but he's michael chekhov is comes after stands laughs he actually and in some way he was his student at at one point and broke off and started to do his own system which is not uncommon the feature that's best

known is the psychological gesture of that something that michael chekhov really develop because i always hear that michael chertoff was was the the source through which the third came i don't know that that's no i don't really that's not how i understand i think liz strasberg and stella adler were the two acting teacher in the united states and they were both actors admittedly and they each had experiences with status lask in russia and brought or or learned things about the system least strasberg i think not from status lasky but stella adler came to russia and met status last king it's been a long time speaking to him and then she brought back her notes and began to teach directly from those any other russian names i mean the names russian theatre the influence the yorker well i would say michael chekhov is a huge and status lasky. and time chekhov's plays are a huge influence and

a huge teaching tool. in the united states the only teaching to oh absolutely not only the material i mean you have to you have to give the teaching to to work with it but the they also teach the material you know it one of the great artistic partnerships i think in western theatre is that of anton chekhov and constantine stands lasky because i think in a sense lasky check of found the director who could bring his plays into life and just in that clip we were just seeing with stanislaw ski's interest and authenticity on the stage that's the kind of playwright the chap off was his interest was interest in authentic characters authentic characterisation so the two go together if you want to teach standards law school system chuck card is a great playwright to you what a go what about that you see today is this. the only technique used to teach. you something or. i would say that every day some people say that what status lasky

really did was codified the rule break rules of acting that were going on for centuries he just managed to put it down and know what better way than anybody else ever had i i think that we also draw on our french technique cox mask or we draw on comedian work and clown work some of our voices were is from the british tradition so i think we're pretty attractive get a c.t. actually. says smith conservative director or head of the acting out of the american conservatory theater talking to us here in spotlight studio we'll take a break now if you will which i will try to talk her into spending another thirty minutes with us don't go.

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welcome back to spotlight i'm my guest on the show today is melissa smith concert she directs when had acting and of the american conservative theater in san francisco. welcome back to spotlight many hollywood stars many hollywood actors movie stars and also taught in the status lipski system and apparently there's a great difference between acting on stage and acting in the movies so if we continue to talk about stunts lasky does it. i mean that's the this russian really designed such a universal thing the goose food yes i think it is it's a it's

a it's a that be a holistic system. i think because it has so much to do with the development of the individual stella starsky had a chart of all the different aspects of his system and at the bottom of the chart they were numbered the different features in the bottom the chart is number one work on yourself that's the number one thing in his system and you know on camera if you don't if you're not telling the truth on camera. the camera doesn't lie and on stage you can get away with some things that you can't get away with on camera you have to project out on stage you have to let the camera go in. steps lasky system because it addresses the body the imagination the mind the memory the emotions dresses everything if you work are all those things you can do it all so so so you know when you're on camera that's very interesting you have to either

told the truth or you have to believe in your lines exactly you know you know i guess that's true and staged you know but i think the interesting thing about the camera the best definition i've ever heard between about the difference between the two kinds of acting is that when you're on stage you want to think about reaching out to the audience but when you're in front of a camera you want to think about letting the camera go inside you you know this is a thought about it a lot i mean i've been acting many people say that that even that there's an old russian word rotting meaning meaning being will one true moving away and being so trying to be somebody else but it looks as if a real and to a good actor in order to deliver something something some piece of the to the public he has to lie he has to pretend to try to really deliver what he thinks is right is the true will this is so this sounds awkward but but is it true well i

would put it slightly differently. i know what i'll tell my students is that there's more than one truth and then i just want to through you know your many through and when you're working on a role you have to find what in yourself lets you identify with the character and their circumstances so that you can one of stanislaw asking is iconic phrases is as if so if if the story involves a woman jump caught in a fire in a building and having needing to escape and you the actor of never been in a building in a fire you don't have to have been there you have to be able to imagine what it's as if what would happen to me maybe i'm not afraid of fire you know it's as if i met a great height or it's as if i might just might be my eyes are confused by you know you know you know is that that's what it is how do you think it was and you know if you're just straight forward like if you see what you do for you on

a list but in theater in television it is a listen to you i mean if you really want to see the thing right i think i mean this may be true this is not what people always want to hear from you well but as an actor you do have a script yet but then you know yes i suppose as an announcer a newscaster or something then you have to find but the same thing what apply i think. is it more prestige if we can continue comparing movies and war what's more prestigious for an american actor to to turn in their on stage or in the movies well first movement and probably more money here is more money and so for the america this is the also the culture of celebrity but many actors make movies and then sometimes go back to the stage meryl streep was mentioned earlier is one of those actresses who has gone back to the stage and done things very nearly to bond which happens happen all the time in russia go back and you have no no the same actors they they continue playing in the theater then make

a. the movies are the same turning going back and so forth i mean in america does not feel this way you either in hollywood or broadway yeah well i don't know if it's either or so i think there was a period where it was either or right now actually i think you can find movie stars going to broadway to do things maybe not all of them not all of them but you know it part of it is does moscow have a plot i mean not moscow does russia have a hollywood you know los angeles what hollywood and los angeles says and then there's new york and russian hundred isn't moscow so so it's all the same thing certainly it's not on the same place in the united states to but listen when cinema was invented when people stood to stand shooting movies especially the talkies in the conference. everybody predicted it's going to kill clear now and they didn't know the save. then they said the television is going to kill death well now

they're saying internet is going to kill everything the internet is going to kill television theory movies and paper resume books did do you think this is true do you think that something may kill here you know no the theatre has been around since ancient times i think part of why it's because it's a communal experience and i think that there are that and i think the internet technology it's all great. but i think people still need communal experiences what kind of theater will be dying due to a variant of the the social networks are actually replacing life communication no i don't i don't feel that way i think there's the social media are very useful i think that they cast a wide net and you can be in touch with all kinds of people but it's also somewhat superficial it's not the same as a live conversation i've been receiving refused to switch off the balance in theatres i know because i need to be on line you know and i don't mind it's because they need to be alive and i think they're just currently entranced with the

technology but i don't know that that means they will always be there i do think it's a challenge right now i agree with you that it's a challenge but i think people still need it part of where i say that too is there at least in the united states right now there's all kinds of. what we call pop up theater flash theater and this is there that might suddenly happen on a street corner you know i'm lame i just start to have it in the middle of traffic it's amazing to me crowds of people stop to watch this and then they stand and talk to each other about it when it's finished i'm going to go the streets but it's all over europe and you know how london i resigned to the company hagan you can see that overturning especially the clowns and you know exactly what you see i think some right now i think that clown theater and mathlete are having an ascendancy ascendancy but i think that'll change again. what about the modern american theatregoer because i have a mask in because in russia it is becoming more and more fashionable young people

to go to theaters how wonderful really there are more and more of them go and it's become so trendy you know i've seen have you seen that it. isn't the same in the states or the more like elderly intellectuals i don't know if they're intellectuals but i do think that in the states i can't say that i think that we're all morning at what can we do to get more young people to go to the theater when there are that i think there are places where young people are going to the theater but at the but i've noticed from traveling in europe and here that it's different in europe there are more young people in the theater than in america why. we are the home of rock n roll and there's the rock concert is where you will find more young people we don't aren't also baseball. baseball fan i think it's the most of the advocates for growth but i tell you i never understood baseball until the they took me to a match ten she's there's nothing to say we're going to be. fabulous theater and

it's interactive very interactive so you'll find that you know young people there but you know that the theater tradition is much younger our country is younger the tradition is younger the american musical is where it's where i think most american theater goers like to go to a musical they want to be entertained they don't necessarily want to see a serious play and. that's a generalization but i don't like it was true they do when they want to do the thing too. is that the reason why psychics are so important states because because if they want to do some thinking they can. if americans want to just you know i think americans and irish you know we pick a pill will pick a book from the shelf instead of going to a psychic we page just a young americans are very far from the shelf but i also think americans i think science is important to americans and history is important to americans. i think. and i think that music over theater sometimes has a point there has always been this between between classical theater as you said a

from coming from the haitian times shakespearean and modern theater modern travels modern schools of and that's going to do you do think this is good do you think this is this competition is healthy for of course i think all competition is healthy for an art i mean i think that it it should be if you get pushed one way and then you get pushed another i don't think there's any one answer book but should we don't lead the old the old productions that are becoming sort of now to well i think there are productions that can become out of date you know there are productions that a revived for thirty forty years. that can be out of date but i don't know that place necessarily the greeks are still there's a production of electric going on in the open at our theater in san francisco right now i think that those plays. they're relevant at particular time so for example if you get if you get views on the internet that this is old time and i mean this is we don't like you this is this is this. does that mean you have to jump at the

make something new or you have to try to explain to the audience or you that i think you have to try to agree with well it's made me come not exactly i think you can put it on the shelf for a while but i don't think it is you know and i don't think that that that there are new players that are absolutely outstanding in black and white movies i mean you know exactly we still watch black and white movies right and we try coloring them and we stopped that didn't work we didn't want to have that melissa smith talking to us on spotlight thank you thank you very much for being with us just a reminder that melissa smith is the conservatory director and have the acting at the american conservatory theater in san francisco so for now from all of us here if you want to have yourself spotlight you can always rely on spotlight will be back with more free time comments on what's going on in and outside russia until then save arctic.

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